This Is My Child - the new MNHQ campaign. Everyone come look please!

As lots of you will already know, we've spent the last few months working on a new campaign called 'This Is My Child' - and it's launching on Monday. (We're letting you know about it now because there's a rather nice piece about in in the Guardian this weekend.)

You can read about the background to the campaign here, but in essence it's about myth-busting and awareness-raising - so we'd really love you all to share it as widely as possible. We've consulted with Mumsnetters and the material is supported by input from some of the leading charities in the field: Mencap, Contact A Family and Every Disabled Child Matters.

Over the years on Mumsnet, parents of children with SN have described how their lives are made more difficult by the occasional (or not-so-occasional) judginess of members of the public. They've described how this can contribute to their isolation, placing limits on their social opportunities because they can't face the stress and disapproval that comes with public interactions.

That's why we came up with This Is My Child. Its aim is to support parents of children with additional needs, inform everyone else, and open up a conversation about how we can all act together to make day-to-day life a bit easier for these families.

Have looked at the photo's of the children. They are all beautiful. My niece was born a couple of months ago in Germany with as yet unknown consequences of the severe oxygen starvation she endured during her birth due to clinical negligence. She is now at home and doing very well but we know that she is partially deaf, will have problems with walking and muscle tone but the rest is unknown. She is an open book but we have hope because she survived.

She is beautiful. Strong, resilient and so full of life and personality.

My sister was disabled, she passed away in 2009. I remember going on holiday one year and someone laughing at her when she had a melt down in departures, she was totally oblivious to the looks she was getting but the rest of us weren't. Usually we just let the looks bounce but this one guy thought it was hilarious and sniggered to his mate then pointed in our direction...

I know this was a petty thing to do but I marched over there and asked him in a really loud voice so that people looked why he was laughing at a disabled person? He looked dumb struck then said sorry, he didn't realise.

So glad to see this is "live" and have shared. The experiences of the mums in the Guardian article are just my experiences when out and about with ds and dd who have autism. Ds is 18 now and only once in all those years has a stranger ever offered to help but the times he has been stared at, called a shit, told he needed a good hiding or I have been berated or criticised for my supposed dreadful parenting are too numerous to count. I was even abused in a disabled parking bay by a pensioner who had the adjacent disabled space who decided in his wisdom ds wasn't worthy of the blue badge Raising awareness of what life is really like for parents of children with disabilities can't come soon enough IMO. Mumsnet

As a 1:1 special needs teacher in a mainstream primary school I have many times found myself trying to explain to colleagues how special the children I teach are and how much they should try to include them. Some teachers work really hard to have jobs in the classroom these children can do, or special projects they will be able to take part in and it's amazing to see how much children with sn want to be like their friends. It's a very rewarding job and I love all my charges nearly as much as my own baby!I'm so happy to see this campaign started and I really hope it helps inform the world how amazing and special these precious children and their famlilies are. If only people could really meet children with sn and see how their fantastic families cope I think the world would be a much more understanding place. There are so many ingorant people out there and I hope this changes things. Thank you mumsnet.